Title: Ice Cream, Cheesecake, and the Best of Friends
Fandom: Golden Girls
Author: Apache Firecat
Characters: one-sided Blanche/Dorothy, past George/Blanche, past Charlie/Rose
Rating: PG/K+
Summary: Blanche stumbles her way home after a very disappointing date.
Word Count: 1,841
Written For: Fan FlashWorks 348: Pants
Disclaimer: All characters within belong to their rightful owners, not the author, and are used without permission.





“Dorothy,” Blanche breathes as she falls across her roommate’s tall body, her fingers curling tightly around her shoulders as she holds to her to keep standing, “Ah am sexy, aren’t Ah? Ah’m beautiful . . . “ She batters down the tears welling in her large, wet eyes. “Aren’t Ah?”



“O-Of course you are, Blanche,” Dorothy stammers, more than a little shocked to see the belle in such a manner, let alone to have her clinging to her like she really is a man. “Get a hold of yourself!” she snaps and instantly regrets her reaction when Blanche visibly flinches. “What the Hell is wrong with you?!”



“She’s been drinking,” Rose calls from the table behind them.



“Gee, Rose, you think?!” Blanche’s breath is horrendous. There’s rum and whiskey, and she’s not certain what all else the other woman has drank tonight – and what all she has endured. What could a man have done, she wonders, to destroy her confidence so? She used to detest women who seemed to draw all their strength and pride from their beauty, but right now, all she cares about is that her friend is hurting – and she desperately needs to remove her clinging paws from her. Before she herself does something unthinkable.



“Yes, I’m pretty sure.” Rose bobs her head in a nod. “In fact, I’m certain of it, Dorothy. That’s the same brand of whiskey my Daddy used to drink.”



“Rose, I don’t care if your father drank moonshine from the moon right now! Blanche, get a hold of yourself!”



“Ah -- Ah’m sorry, Dorothy,” Blanche apologizes. She tries to pull herself up right, but as she straightens her blouse, she leans again.



“Come on, belle,” Dorothy chastises, placing a hand on her right shoulder and steering her toward the kitchen table around which the three of them have already shared many a tender, supportive moment. “Rose, -- “ she starts, but to her surprise, Rose, for a rare change, is actually showing her intellect as she bounces onto her feet and toward the refrigerator. “It’s a good thing I bought another one today.”



“This house can never have too many cheesecakes.”



“Ah can’t eat!” Blanche exclaims, waving a hand, as she falls into the chair at which Dorothy pushes her. “Maybe that’s what’s wrong with me! Ah am pretty! Ah am pretty! Right, Dorothy?” She peers up at her.



“Of course you are,” Dorothy answers matter-of-factly even as she wonders why she keeps asking her and hasn’t bothered to ask Rose once. She’s not a man. No matter how hard she may have tried in the past, she is not a man. She certainly isn’t anyone in which Blanche would be interested in dating, or doing anything else with.



“You’re beautiful, Blanche,” Rose chimes in, for which Dorothy is thankful, as she sets the cheesecake on the table. Dorothy busies herself with fetching saucers and spoons.



“Maybe Ah should’ve worn a dress instead of this old pants suit.”



“Old? That thing looks brand new and can be seen a mile away! It screams tramp!” But all that tramp had eyes for was the guys, Dorothy thinks. She doesn’t want her, of all people, so she really doesn’t understand why she keeps looking to her to tell her how beautiful she is. She may be the most beautiful thing Dorothy’s ever seen, but she’s not going to say the words out loud. She’s tired of being hurt; pain, after all, is all she’s known in her love life for years. Blanche may have had a bad date tonight, but she can’t begin to imagine how long and hard Dorothy has tried with men, and women, and been hurt by both. Her years of trying are over; Stan made certain of that. She’s retired from the dating game, and the complete demise of the spirit of a gorgeous woman like Blanche Deveraux is simply further proof that she has made the right decision.



“Your clothes are fine, Blanche,” Rose says, cajolingly, patting her hand, “and of course you’re beautiful. Any man would be lucky to have you.”



Any one would be lucky to have her, Dorothy thinks, but she keeps the comments to herself as she starts slicing into the pie.



Blanche bats her long eyelashes, mascara dripping down her face. She looks imploringly at the two women with whom she now shares her home, the closest people she still has in her life to friends. Maybe she should have moved back to Georgia after George died. She has herds of people who flock to her there, who hang on her every word. Maybe she should have gone home. She’d certainly have no end of suitors there, and not simply because of Big Daddy’s money, although Big Daddy would never have allowed anyone to make her doubt her beauty or let his baby girl hurt. “Do you really mean that, Rosie?”



“Of course I do.” Rose pats her hand again.



Blanche shakes her head and slowly looks from Rose up to Dorothy, who nods mutely as though backing Rose’s opinion. When a mere nod does not suffice, she voices, “You’re beautiful, Blanche, probably the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”



“Oh, girls!” Blanche exclaims, suddenly beaming. “Ah don’t know what Ah’d do without you!”



“Some men are just terrified of strong, confident women, Blanche,” Rose confides in her. “Thankfully, my Charlie was never that sort.”



Dorothy opens her mouth to demand just when exactly Rose had been either strong or confident, but there’s something in Blanche’s eyes that hold her gaze and silence her acid tongue. Let the woman have her moments, she thinks; at least she can derive some happiness from somewhere.



“Dorothy?” Blanche asks.



“You’re gorgeous, Blanche,” Dorothy assures her and finally sits down, “just like Rose said. Now who said what?”



“He said Ah reminded him o’ his mothah!” Blanche cries out.

“I always reminded Charlie of his mother,” Rose admits, “but in good ways.”



“Rose, this isn’t about you an’ Charlie! This is about me an’ Ge – “ She stops, realizing she almost spoke her dead husband’s name. George never would have demeaned her like Rudy did tonight. “About Rudy.”



“No, Blanche,” Rose speaks, squeezing her hand, “you said it right. You were thinking about George. You’re scared you’re never going to meet another one like him.”



Blanche is quiet for a moment before timidly admitting, “You’re right, o’ course – “ She bats more tears away. “ – an’ o’ course there isn’t. No one’s evah gonna wear th’ pants in mah life again like George. He was a real man. He wasn’t intimidated by a strong, beautiful woman. He couldn’t have been, not bein’ married to me.”



“There’s only one George,” Rose says quietly, “and only one Charlie. We were lucky to have them, Blanche. But they wouldn’t want us to die without them, or worse, to stop living. God chose for us to move on, and we have to move on. We have to live our lives. We have to at least try to be happy. It’s what they would want.”



Blanche hiccups suddenly and quickly covers her mouth with her hand. Rose giggles, and Dorothy laughs out right at the look on her friend’s face. To be so outspoken, Blanche is still obviously shy about not being able to hide her drunkenness. “You know, George was nevah a mean drunk. Ah mean, he nevah really had problems with any alcohol. He could hold his drink just fine. But sometimes, he’d really get high spirited on whiskey an’ brandy an’ rum an’ Ah’d just love what he would do to me, how he’d ravish me!” Fresh tears begin to fall down her flushed cheeks. “Ah nevah once thought he’d die an’ leave me alone.”



“None of us want to think our husbands will leave us,” Rose whispers and then silences herself with a bite of cheesecake.



Dorothy knows they’re right. No matter the pain they put them through, they never really think their husbands will leave, and sometimes, as with her and Stan, they even convince themselves they would be better off without them plaguing them. Yet now she’d do almost anything to have that plague back. “At least you girls were lucky. You had good ones.”



Rose reaches out and pats her hand too. “Yeah, we were lucky,” she agrees softly, beginning to cry herself, “incredibly lucky.”

“Oh, girls, look at us now! Poutin’ an’ cryin’ on a Friday night!” Blanche pushes herself up from the table, declaring, “Ah don’t care if Ah am ten pounds overweight!”

“Just ten?”

“Dorothy!”



“Oh, let her have her fun! We all know you two are nevah gonna look like me!”



“That’s a good belle.” Dorothy smirks. “You found your beauty again.”



“Ah only lost mah confidence for a minute, but Ah got it right back thanks to you two.” She gazes at them for a long moment. “What you said before,” she asks, “it still stands, right? You’re nevah gonna leave me?” She winces, having not meant for her last words to come out as the choked, emotional almost-whimper in which they just sounded.



“Never,” Rose vows. “Even if we get married again, we’ll just have to move our husbands in.”



Dorothy is silent. It’s Blanche who will leave her or rather kick her out when she finally learns the truth, but she’s going to enjoy this life in the meantime. She’s going to enjoy their friendships, especially Blanche’s, until the gorgeous, confident Southern belle who doesn’t need them or anybody really finally sends her away. Finding herself battling her own tears, Dorothy tells herself sternly that she is going to enjoy every minute of it and delay the inevitable for as long as she can.



“You know what we need, girls?”

“A man?” Dorothy asks derisively.



“No, we may want a man, but except for sex, we’ll never need a man. An’ Ah already had sex tonight. It was after that Rudy called me his mothah. Ah guess that’s why it stung so much.”



Rose looks at her, wide-eyed. “He called you mom after having sex?”

Dorothy shakes her grey head. “This world is always getting sicker,” she remarks dryly, thinking of the school she’d worked at that day before pushing those memories away. She really was going to have to get pistol training and a pistol soon.



“All th’ more important,” Blanche drawls, sashaying to the refrigerator, “that we have an’ keep an’ keep on bein’ here for each othah, but what we need tonight is ice cream.”



“Ice cream, cheesecake, and the best of friends. What more could a woman ask for on a Friday night?”



“Oh, a lot, honey,” Blanche answers truthfully, “a whole heapin’ lot.” For once, Dorothy agrees, but she keeps her thoughts to herself and nibbles on another bite of cheesecake as she watches the beautiful Southern belle she knows she’s very, very lucky to have in her life – and not just for her friendship – while it lasts.



The End